EssaySnark

($) So what’s going to happen this MBA admissions season?

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You likely heard by now that app volumes at many American MBA programs went down last year. The small subset of the news media that covers the MBA marketplace loves to jump on these changes, either hollering about the sky-high record-setting numbers (which we saw the prior few years) or shouting from the rooftops that there’s a bubble and the bottom is going to fall out of the business school economy. Data on application numbers lets them write big headlines.

But what’s going to happen this year? Is this downward trend going to continue — and does it mean that it might be a softer admissions environment, and therefore “easier” to get in?

First, you’ll notice that “easier” is in quotes. It’s never “easy” to get into a top-ranked MBA program in the U.S. or elsewhere (especially in the US). But certainly, there was an era before the modern one when doing a good job on the essays and having a decent 710 to 720 GMAT was pretty much a sure thing of getting in somewhere — without going to a safety list.

Are those days returning?

As much as we criticized all the “Sky is falling!” journalists who were wringing hands in the past week over the sad state of applications in the Class of 2019 admissions season, we do have to offer some comments that this year may be markedly different, at least at some schools (not Harvard and Stanford, but all the other mere-mortal institutions). We’re already reading the tea leaves and seeing that in fact there could be a more pronounced softening. So the headlines actually could be more valid than we initially gave them credence for.

What makes us say that? Especially so early, when hardly any schools have even issued many interview invites as of yet?

We’re not going to go into actual details but we’ll just say that we’re observing signs that the top U.S. schools have in fact seen a dip in apps for Round 1 compared to last year, and they’re starting to worry that their Round 2 numbers won’t make up for it. The signs are telling us that this may actually be a fairly marked decline.

It’s highly unusual that we’re able to offer any type of forecast or even a directional indication this early in the season. But it’s a different world across the board, isn’t it?

Admittedly, this is how rumors get started — but you know we like to prognosticate! (See here and here and basically all of here.)

As a refresher to why this matters: The admissions teams are incentivized to meet certain quotas and to hit targets of how many applicants are submitting. Their interests are opposed to yours as an applicant: They want as many people as possible to apply, even if not all of those apps are qualified or would ever be accepted. This is because the rankings in certain publications use app numbers as a key input, and as you saw in the MBA media, these dips and shifts are scrutinized carefully. A school would be very motivated to not make headlines due to their numbers tanking; more than one admissions director has lost their job over this. The main issue with being written up in, say, the Wall Street Journal about how your application volumes cratered is that it then creates a snowball effect, where prospective applicants in the subsequent season get spooked that there’s something “wrong” with the school, and then it ends up feeding a downward spiral. This actually happened to NYU fairly recently, and when Wharton and Columbia both saw massive decreases in applications in the same 2010-2011 admissions cycle we wrote up many posts about it (one of which even prompted the Columbia adcom to change an applicant-unfriendly policy! Whoohoo EssaySnark for having your back! even when you were practically in diapers).

So even though we say “Pshaw!” when pundits are prophesizing the end of the MBA or forecasting a bubble, or a collapse in the market such as what happened with law schools (which is totally different than this environment, since it was driven by the employers, whereas this is being driven by the students), we do have to acknowledge that yes indeed, there are changes happening.

And these changes should be incredibly positive for each of you as individual applicants.

This is unlikely to have much effect on the tippy-top schools. HBS and the GSB are still getting gobs of applicants and we didn’t see Harvard lower their standards in who they invited to interview last week. We’re not expecting Stanford to do so, either. However, most other schools, particularly places like Booth and Tuck and Yale, are probably going to suddenly become more accessible again.

And, this also means that the Round 1 waitlist is going to be put to extensive use.

In the face of uncertainty, what happens?

Adcoms get conservative. Instead of outright rejecting you, they may decide to put you in limbo.

So, this good news is the exact opposite of the warning we had to issue in mid-season only a few years ago, where we were trying to shake everyone by their shirtcollars and say “Wake up! It’s going to be hard to get an offer in Round 1!” This time, it may be that you end up with multiple offers in December — provided you did your homework as you should have, and you had a compelling package put together.

GMAT scores are likely to slip down a tiny bit for the Class of 2020, though the factors keeping them elevated are probably going to remain, especially since there’s such a long lag effect with scores. It’ll take a lot before the wind comes out of the GMAT sails and averages come back to the 715 level. But, schools will possibly have more flexibility and willingness to admit a handful of more average-Joe (or Josephine) scores.

So the tl;dr: If you’re an international applicant, this year may be much more straightforward for an admit (again, provided you’ve got your ducks lined up appropriately in how you have pitched). If you’re a reapplicant, then odds are especially in your favor. If you’re an American, then it’s harder to forecast — but we’re feeling a tad more optimistic than we were even a few weeks ago in our last read-the-tea-leaves post. And, Round 2 may be a more normal Round 2: A lot of competition but not necessarily really strong competition.

We’ll have to find out how it goes! Please keep us informed of your individual progress by updating your School Targets in My SnarkCenter and we’ll be happy to offer any comments that we can.

 
 
This conversation on international applicants continued here!

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